Claire is 10!

Little Claire turned 10 years old!  Guess she's not so little any more.  :)

We had Jer and Dani over for the morning of her bday-- I think the envelope below was Jer's work of art.

For her bday, Claire wanted her ears pierced.  However, she didn't want to do it ON her bday, so we did it a week later.  Looks cute, doesn't it?

IBC Fall Festival

Claire's friend, Tizita, newly adopted from Africa

Jenna with one of her good church friends, Katelyn.

Micah invited his whole class to our church's festival-- this little girl, Aleisha-Rae, was the only one who came

You can't tell because this is a still pic, but Jenna and her friends were flying around pretty fast on this thing!   Powered by pumping the bar with their hands

Had a terrific turnout for this event!  More than 2000 people.  Very well organized and all free.  All on our church's grounds.  Pony rides, hayrides, pumpkin painting, roasting smores, lunch food and other snacks, lots of moon bounce things, and some live bluegrass.

Monkey Joe's

Chad and Katie and Jenna went to a movie, so I took Claire and Micah to Monkey Joe's.  Micah had never been there before, and he loved it!  I was quite happy that he and Claire could hang out together-- and that they are both quite trustworthy-- so I didn't have to try to keep track of them the whole time.  They did great together. 

Jumbo's

On Saturday, we had a lovely family trip to Jumbos Pumpkin Patch in Middletown, MD.  (this side of Frederick)  Weather was on the edge of cold, esp when the wind blew hard, but it turned out to be a lovely time.  We all enjoyed it.

The pumpkin patch is HUGE.  Because it is Jumbo's 20th anniversary, they told us they hid 5 gold painted pumpkins in the patch.  If we found one, we'd get $20 free pumpkins.  You'd think with 6 of us looking we might have a good chance of finding one.  Hah!  We looked and looked, and had fun looking, but no golden pumpkin.

On the edge of the pumpkin patch, there was a lovely little pond.

Yummy food-- fried oreos, funnel cakes, chicken strips, mozzarella sticks

Chad and Micah made it thru the corn maze!

Steps

Our lovely new steps

Vacation Home

T-Rex's vacation home

T-Rex provided lots of fun and entertainment for a month ago.  Last week, he suddenly disappeared from his home.  We have no idea what happened.  We were about to let him go, tho-- not sure how turtles handle winter, but probably they don't want to stay trapped in our yard.